Assemble 12.30pm Speakers Corner

Scan page 7

perrillas efend capitalist rule bI. A counter-revolensive was decisiveip under the direc• US imperialists, ishing the challenge rule through bloody rituation the only I for the working the immediate and aration for the of struggles into neral strike to lead In armed insurreci seizure of power. action mination and fightwere there. And iction was forced tack whether the forward or not. routh and militants themselves built of struggle, develerground network, b arm themselves. land methods of struggle (factory occupations, land seizures, mass mobilisations, armed self-defence) faced in the direction of a revolutionary overthrow.

Strength

A bold policy was needed to take forward this organised strength and militant action--by developing revolutionary combat organisations (soviet-type councils, • workers' and peasants' militia) and raising a revolutionary programme of democratic and transitional demands to weld together the workers in action, rally behind them the urban and rural poor, and draw in rank and file soldiers.

Above all, a revolutionary leadership had to be built. In this decisive period when spontaneous militancy could take them no further forward, the masses were politically disarmed by their leaderships.

Forced to respond to the great tide of militancy, the CRM called for a series of general strike mobilisations but these were general strikes that were limited from the outset from above to no more than protests, shows of strength short of a real struggle for power.

Called without preparation and with no serious perspective of victory, these actions led to tremendous sacrifices and blows which in turn brought a level of exhaustion and drained the evolutionary energy of the working class.

The counter-revolution became bolder, and began to regain some of its lost ground, strengthening its murderous hold in the towns, the nerve centres of control and power in any state.

The struggle had reached impasse.

The core of the mass movement, the urban working class, had been forced back. The focus of struggle shifted towards the rural areas and rural guerrilla warfare. The general strike called in August 1980 failed to find the massive response of earlier strike calls.

Even during the general strike mobilisations, the CRM leadership had turned further away from the proletariat, showing its class collaborationist strategy by forming a popular front alliance (the FDR) with capitalist politicians, "progressive» army officers and other elements who argue a solution different from that of the US These elements lack a social base, and are isolated even from most of the Salvadorean capitalist class, which has openly gone over to the side of reaction. The FDR operates as a political force only with the assistance of the Stalinist, centrist and petty bourgeois nationalist leaders who use them as a key component of the politics of class collaboration.

For those sections of the international bourgeoisie and for the Social Democratic traitors of the Second International who either oppose Reagan's strategy or hesitate over its chances of success, the bourgeois liberals of the FDR are a lever to strangle the revolutionary movement from within.

For the same reason the class collaborationist line of the CRM leaders is supported by the Stalinist bureaucracies in the Soviet Union and Cuba, as well the petty bourgeois Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

Brezhnev, in his drive to defend the parasitic Kremlin bureaucracy through "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism, goes even further in trying to hold back the struggle-he has withheld arms and aid to the FDR and to the guerrilla command, the FMLN.

The Castro bureaucracy, facing the rather different problems of preserving its own "peaceful coexistence" on the American doorstep in the Caribbean, has put on a very ditterent display of rhetoric from that of Brezhnev-with tub-thumping declarations of solidarity with the Salvadorean struggle.

But Castro, too, accepts the concept of revolution by stages, and therefore supports popular frontist blocs rather than the extension of socialist revolution throughout Central America.

Meanwhile the FDR/FMLN popular front leadership stands as a political obstacle to thę Salvadorean masses. The popular front acts to turn the masses away from the urgent need to build their independent organisations and pursue their own class interests.

The masses have already paid a terrible price for the mistakes and crimes of those Stalinist, centrist and petty bourgeois leaders who provided no answer when the crucial question of power was posed.

The FDR/FMLN summoned the masses to the "final offensive" in January this year.

But the courageous efforts of the guerrillas, workers and peasants could not in themselves overcome the difficulties already created by previous policies.

The dictatorship, bruised but unbroken, recovered from the offensive with the help of massive injections of US economic and military aid.

The counter-revolution has not succeeded in smashing the masses or breaking their resistance. But this is true in spite of the existing leadership, and thanks only to the spontaneous strength of the masses, which nas continually clashed with the political barrier of the class collaboration of their leaders.

But they now face terrible hardship and danger in the bloody civil war. And they face a growing military intervention by the US imperialists, determined to shore up the Duarte dictatorship.

Every day the workers and oppressed face the terror of the bosses' butcheis. Every day they are forced to look to their own strength and initiative for self-defence.

Their courage and determination, and their striving for an independent road urgently need to be taken forward behind the independent banner of a worker led anti-imperialist united front.

This demands a mighty regroupment and cohesion of the urban working class, to build its independent organisations hand in hand with the workers of the countryside, and to rally the masses and guerrilla fighters against any alliancè with bourgeois politicians and socialist programme the needs. of layers oppressed* The political struggle against the class collaborationist leadership must be taken • within the joint military. struggle against imperial on.

On this • ba organisational and political force can be built defend against the counter evolution and move prepared and united onto the offensive for power and for socialist revolution.

*Develop the independent underground committees of struggle at workplaces and in the communities.

*Develop, link and unify struggles through the building of councils of workers, peasants, guerrillas delegates: fight to draw in delegates from the rank and file of the army.

*Build the armed struggle as part of the self-defence and mobilisation of the masses.

Build workers and peasants militias to defend against state and paramilitary terror. For the arming of the Salvadorean masses.

*No alliances with capitalist agents. No secret dipiomacy. Down with class collaborators!

*For a workers and peasants government based on the independent organisations of struggle. Down with the Duarte dictatorship.

*Expropriate the capitalists and imperialists. Nationalise banking, industry and the big farms under workers control. Cancel the foreign debt.

*Nationalise the land under the control of farm workers and poor peasants. For a programme of cheap credit and other material aid to the poor peasants.

*For a massive programme of public works and services under workers' control, to meet the needs of the people and provide jobs. For a planned socialist economy, demanding aid and trading links with Cuba, the USSR and other workers' states.

*Full support to revolutionary struggies throughout Central America. The defence of a workers' government ir Salvador rests on the defeat of imperialism throughout the region. For a socialist united states of Central America and the Caribbean.

*Solidarity with the PST and other Trotskyist groupings in El Salvador!

Work Build the aruste alongside your Salvadorean class allies. Fight for a workers' and peasants' government to expropriate capital in Nicaragua. Reject the imperialist blackmail! Workers of the World *The masses of El Salvador must not be left to fight alone!

*Mobilise your strength, use every possible means to weaken the imperialist enemy and aid the workers' struggle.

*Organise blacking, strikes and all other necessary action to halt arms and aid to the Junta!

*Mobilise to demand arms and aid for the masses of El Salvador!

• *Build the struggle against the class enemy in your own country!

*Hands off El Salvador!

*Hands off Central America and Cuba!

*Victory to the Salvadorean workers and peasants!

*Build the workers revolutionary socialist party El Salvador!

*Reconstruct the Fourth International, world party of socialist revolution!

Scan page 8

tcliffe control and take over foreign